


Jackson Pollock Knows She Tried

by Leidolette



Category: Ex Machina (2015)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Captivity, Gen, Mild Gore, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6000678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb doesn't starve, but he doesn't do much else either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jackson Pollock Knows She Tried

Caleb eventually gets exhausted from slamming his fists on the door and having a complete emotional breakdown. So, after hours of beating his hands bloody and screaming himself hoarse, he half goes to sleep, half passes out on Nathan's bed.

When he wakes up, it's to natural light instead of the red glow of emergency power, and there's a plate of perfect Châteaubriand placed on Nathan's desk.

* * *

It turns out to be the first meal of many, and, so far, each has been absolutely luxurious. In fact, even better than the ones he'd eaten with Nathan. He supposes Kyoko has a lot more free time now. 

She must come in while he's sleeping to deliver the food, though he has never seen her do it. He has feigned sleep for hours waiting to hear the click of an opening door or the soft footfalls of another being in the room. He's managed to stay up for days trying to catch her at it, but she never came in, and he just got hungry for his troubles. Kyoko must have some way of sensing if he is truly asleep. He wonders what sort of biometric sensors Nathan would have outfitted a sexbot with. God only knows.

Water is not a problem. Nathan has a bathroom attached to his suite with all the expected amenities: sink, toilet, shower. The water pressure is nice too, the pumps and heaters must still be drawing power. Between Kyoko's food and the ready supply of water, Caleb could pretty much survive here indefinitely.

Lucky him.

* * *

There's not much to do. 

The computer is still unusable, so he reads the post-it notes Nathan had stuck on his wall but they mostly don't make much sense. The majority of them seem to refer to technical aspects of Ava's AI system, but they are disjointed and devoid of the larger coding context. Honestly, even if they were nestled in with the rest of the puzzle pieces, Caleb might still not understand the notes. Nathan really was a lot smarter than him.

Caleb even waters the fucking plants. Some of them are exotic, and, according to the bottle he found in the drawer next to the tank, need the occasional nutrient drops to survive. They'll be in trouble when he runs out of the half empty container of plant food. Maybe Kyoko will automatically order more when that happens.

_If_ , he corrects himself forcefully. _If_ that happens.

* * *

Kyoko comes to look at him sometimes. He would almost say that he's like an animal in a zoo, but she never seems curious or mocking or superior. She's just... there.

She hasn't fixed herself. Her face is still all messed up -- jaw missing and torn wires exposed. He doesn't know why she has left herself like that. She might not know how to replace it, or possibly all the available parts are in here with him, still attached to the bodies in the boxes.

Could be she just doesn't care how she looks now that she doesn't have Nathan to satisfy. 

"Help me, please," he tries again today when Kyoko comes by to watch him eat his breakfast. He doesn't really expect her to respond, but, hey, it's a habit by now.

Kyoko stares from the other side of the door.

"I can fix you," he says, gesturing to his own jaw instead of the gaping area where hers should be. Even this service he has offered before, though it's been a while. Privately, Caleb isn't sure if he could fix her face or not; programming was his specialty, not engineering.

Kyoko stares for a little longer, then walks away.

* * *

It's hard to tell how long he's been here. No windows, no clocks. He's only got his slowly growing stubble and his sleep schedule. The latter has become erratic -- it's always been bad, but Caleb's captivity and enforced idleness has only made it worse. He sleeps in spurts of only a couple hours at a time, and wakes completely disoriented. 

The only other outside indication of the passage of time is the gradual decomposition of Nathan's body in the hallway. Kyoko hasn't cleaned it up, for whatever reason, though she has cleared away the remains of Ava's shattered arm. The corpse is beginning to collapse in on itself, and most of the visible skin is turning a truly awful color. Caleb imagines that the smell would be unbearable if there were any air circulation between the two rooms. 

Kyoko, of course, never changes.

* * *

Obviously, Caleb has a lot of time to think.

Ava had once asked him whether he thought of her when she wasn't around. She would probably be pleased to know just how much he thinks of her now.

He wonders why she left him.

_Are you a good person?_

Maybe that was it. Maybe she's seen something in his face. Yeah, he had thought that he'd been telling the truth, but people lie to themselves all the time. Maybe his subconscious knew something he didn't. 

Maybe he deserves this, he thinks sometimes. In his more balanced moments, he hopes that is just the captivity talking.

* * *

Perhaps Ava would also be happy to hear that he thinks about Kyoko too, when she's not there. She's an AI, at least on some level. Nathan probably hadn't thought so, seeing as she wasn't the one Caleb was supposed to be testing, but Kyoko had been trying to communicate with him when she'd pulled away her skin. She had been speaking without words, clear as day. 

Sometimes she comes by when he is sleeping, and he wakes to her staring at him through the glass door. It would creep him out, if his life wasn't such a nightmare already. Tonight he wakes up for a moment, and, sure enough, she's there. Her shape is as still as a statue against the light from the hallway.

Caleb rolls over and goes back to sleep.

* * *

One morning, at some indeterminable point in his imprisonment, after combing over his memories for the thousandth time, Caleb is hit with a striking, high-definition playback of the first time that he was alone with Kyoko, before Nathan came in the room and turned on the music. But this time it's like something in the memory has rotated and clicked into place.

_Huh,_ he thinks to himself.

* * *

When Kyoko comes by for her usual vigil (when had he started to think of it that way?), for the first time in a long time, Caleb has something new to say to her.

"I'm sorry I didn't try to help you, before." After a pause, he adds, "Both times."

If he expects a reaction from Kyoko, he doesn't get one. Her eyes don't even flicker. But Caleb isn't waiting for a signal -- he has already gotten one.

"I'm sorry I didn't try to get you out of here too," he continues.

Caleb's heart is beating so fast, but his mind is clear.

"What do _you_ want?" he asks Kyoko, and this time, he really means it. He steps closer to the door, and waits.


End file.
